© June Young Lim

Genesis Gangnam

Car shops, formerly the prime sales venue for cars, are no longer the exclusive setting in which cars are branded and presented to customers. Multichannel points of sales enable customers to choose between brands and models before entering the car shop; as a result, 90% of the customers who visit a car store have already chosen a model in advance. Under the pressure of the increased fragmentation of sales and in response to changing consumer habits, the automotive retail store has increasingly turned into a space for marketing and visual branding. This is reflected in the design of the retail space: the ubiquitous vitrine typology has created a mish-mash of brands and product.